Grit Lab Report

Hi Omotoyosi,

Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!

We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.

We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.

Important note!

Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.

If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.

Okay, let’s get started!

The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.

We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.

Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.

The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.

Regarding passion you picked Stage 3: I’m actively figuring out what my interests are by trying one or more of them out in some way .

Regarding perseverance you picked .

As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.

Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.

In week 2, we looked at your interests.

Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.

Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.

Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.

In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.

You said your top three values were self-direction, benevolence, and stimulation.

You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.

When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was agreeableness.

You said your top three talents were analytic, social, and musical.

We then talked about goal hierarchies.

You said you had a general intuition (but nothing specific yet) about your top-level goal.

We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.

A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to backflipping .

Here is how self-concordant that goal was:

Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.

It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!

Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.

We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:

Work Smart

In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.

You WOOPed!

For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Get group attendance up .

For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said Successful events for the class. Vibes and free stuff .

For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Work / lack of prep time .

For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I fill out a google form, then I will work on the agenda .

Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.

And here’s how much you learned

These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.

The important thing is that you learn something along the way!

In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.

You shared you’ve done daily practice in Sports .

We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.

In week 8, we discussed feedback.

Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!

You said you felt Thankful when receiving critical feedback, and Thankful when receiving positive feedback.

We then turned to learning about stress.

In week 9, you reported feeling of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being .

We also talked about adversity and failure.

Although related, adversity and failure are different:

Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.

However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…

Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.

And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.

We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.

Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.

You describe the habit you chose as Health .

Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.

Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?

So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.

In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.

Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.

Here’s how you described them:

You also wrote a gratitude letter to Other .

In one word, you said it made you feel Happy .

One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.

… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.

Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.

Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?

Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.

Play has to come before hard work
harmony is aerodynamic
Breaking things down is good, connecting these smaller goals to high level goals is where the magic happens
Deliberate practice every day there are small deaths
How to give effective advice
Habits are automatic
Money is fine but energy is the real important thing to cultivate
Power corrupts, PowerPoint corrupts absolutely. And the gravitas excercise

In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.

Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:

Jake Peralta
Toyosi's joyful and adventurous energy always lightened up the room around him. In group discussions, he would always crack jokes or bring up some funny self-deprecating story about how his week had been. It was also really cool to see how adventurous he was; it seemed like throughout the start of the semester, he would try out for a new sports or music group every other day. It goes to show his own comfortableness with himself and desire to try new things. Outside of this, he was very thoughtful, always looking for ways to help out in class or checking up on people in our team. I really liked hearing about Toyosi's discovery project. It was cool to see how he connected his family's artsy background with his own body positivity struggles through dance. He also got to do so many fun things around Philly for his discovery project - workshops or performing arts shows that reflected his adventurous spirit. Throughout the semester, he would break out spontaneously into dance moves and teach our group when we asked, showing the level of practice and passion he had for it though he would always downplay his own skill when complimented. Toyosi's discovery project was a really cool reflection of his artistic side that I enjoyed hearing about.
Zora Mardjoko
Toyosi's friendly interactions with everyone he meets makes him one of the most personable figures I know. From striking up conversations with others in class, or his professors, to our chats every time we meet on Locust, his captivating aura inspires me. Aside from being good with people and a natural leader, I am inspired by the way he carries himself. Whether it's being president of his class, or writing out proofs during Grit Lab breaks, Toyosi throws himself 110% into everything he does. His confidence to try new things is contagious. I am so grateful I decided to take Grit Lab this semester, because Toyosi made class such a joy. Toyosi's Discovery Project shows his willingness to be a complete beginner in things he's never tried before. Relying on others to teach him, he was committed to starting completely anew. When he mentioned a salsa workshop at Bok Bar, I was inspired to make the most of being in Philly and try new things. As I reflect on Toyosi's project, I'm motivated to try something new.
Rachel Lee
Toyosi is an unwavering leader who leads by example! I really appreciate that he would come well prepared with the course material and understanding of the readings during our pair and share discussions. He does not shy away from speaking candidly about his opinions and they are always thoughtful and clever! Toyosi also is open to sharing his personal experiences, especially from his childhood, and about great insights from the people he loves — especially his stories about his older brother and how he has learned from him. He always greets different Grit Lab classmates and people on Locust (including Professor Peter Fader) with a warm grin — it’s evident that Toyosi has a lot of love to give to other people. I loved hearing about his insightful questions on how to better lead our Class of 2024 Student Board and apply class knowledge to practice. I have no doubt that he will lead any organization with his natural charisma and grit! I really enjoyed all of our team discussions with Toyosi, especially when he would bust out some moves that he learned as part of his discovery project. I liked the addition of the videos from his progression from the beginning of his project to the end, and I am so proud of everything that he was able to achieve despite his busy schedule! I appreciated hearing about his motivation to pursue the particular project of delving deeper into the world of dance, particularly his childhood reflection towards the beginning of the presentation. I also liked how Toyosi’s discovery project not only involved his personal development and deliberate dance practice but also learning from others, such as by observing performing arts groups on campus. Overall, Toyosi had a strong presence in front of the classroom and was able to artfully use rhetorical skills such as humor that carried throughout the presentation in an appealing manner.

We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.

Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?

Drumroll please…

Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.

In any case, grit is not built in a day…

…remember that progress is never smooth…

…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.

With grit and gratitude,

Angela and the Grit Lab team.